


you'll never let yourself be saved

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Kissing by Proxy, M/M, Mediated Desire, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, Pining, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, background pegoryugoro and all permutations thereof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29601180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: Ryuji just wants to know why his best friend/crush's ex is avoiding him and gets a lot more than he expectedOR,“Why are you avoiding everyone?” said Ryuji, trying his level best to make it not sound like an accusation. Akechi would probably take it as one anyway, but Ryuji didn’t need to give him any extra ammunition.“You can’t think of any reasons?” Akechi said sardonically. “Are you sure about that?”
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Sakamoto Ryuji
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	you'll never let yourself be saved

**Author's Note:**

> I've been vaguely thinking about writing this since June or July of last year and then decided that tonight was the night and wrote the entire thing in one sitting so uh. enjoy!
> 
> Contains: non-graphic discussion of canon game events (interrogation room, engine room) and the violence/trauma/assumed character deaths therein, mentions of parental neglect, and Goro Akechi-typical self-worth issues
> 
> Also very much contains spoilers through pretty much the whole third semester of Royal

Ryuji would’ve caught Akechi by the wrist to prevent him from disappearing into the night if he didn’t think that would earn him an elbow to the throat, shoved up against the cold concrete wall of the dimly lit Yongen-Jaya alleyway where he’d followed Goro after their most recent Phantom Thieves meeting, the short-cut he took (Ryuji assumed) so that he could avoid talking to anyone else on his way to the train station. He wouldn’t have minded that, Ryuji thought, under different circumstances, but that really wasn’t the point and anyway he didn’t have time to unpack that right now anyway.

Akechi noticed that Ryuji was behind him, because of course he did, but instead of speeding up to avoid the conversation like Ryuji expected him to, he stopped. “Following me, Skull?” he said, his face half-hidden in shadows in a way that accentuated his cheekbones and made Ryuji wonder if he was getting enough to eat. Damn. Now he sounded like his mother. Or like Ren, who could match Ryuji’s mother for gentle concern. That wasn’t a helpful thought either. He didn’t need to think about how much he liked it when his best friend fussed over him when he was confronting said best friend’s rival about their feelings for each other.

“I just wanted to talk to you,” said Ryuji, “but you always leave so quickly, like you’re trying to avoid me.” Trying to avoid everyone, more likely. Ryuji was pretty sure it wasn’t just him that Akechi did his best not to talk to.

“I wasn’t aware that we had anything to say to one another,” said Akechi.

“Yeah, see, that’s the problem,” said Ryuji. “You didn’t know something, so you assumed that there wasn’t anything to know.”

“And are you going to enlighten me,” said Akechi, voice low, teeth bared, “or are we going to stand around here in the cold all night?” It wasn't like Ryuji wanted to be out here much longer either. He'd forgotten to bring gloves, his knuckles were already dry and cracking, and he was beginning to feel the ache in his leg where it had been broken and always got sore when he stood for too long or the temperature dropped too low. But he couldn't give up until he got Akechi to listen.

“If you would just let me get in a word edgewise,” said Ryuji, and Akechi snorted and nodded his head stiffly, like he was too good to say, _so get on with it already_.

Akechi was looking for a fight, Ryuji realized. He recognized the symptoms, saw Akechi's hands clenched into tight fists in his coat pockets and the tension in his tightened jaw, and wondered if he would lash out first with his hands or if he would find words that hurt far worse. Ryuji knew how that felt, knew all about pointless, helpless, overwhelming anger, when his hands shook and his vision blurred and his thoughts were washed away in a horrible prickling-hot static. He knew what it was like when everything felt like an attack and all he could think to do was hit back.

Ryuji didn’t want to give Akechi that opening. It wasn’t what any mental health professional would call a healthy coping mechanism, it wouldn’t actually solve any of either of their problems, and if he was anything like Ryuji (and Ryuji was pretty sure he was) it would just make him feel worse. Also, if Ryuji let Akechi pick a fight, Ryuji wasn’t sure if he could stop himself from fighting back, not when he was already so annoyed at both Akechi and himself. He’d gotten better at managing it, at letting things go, at breathing through his anger, at channeling it into productive things like weights training or revenge, at reminding himself that it wasn’t the fault of his friends or his mother when everything in the world was too much. He'd made so much progress, and he didn't want to slip up now.

“Why are you avoiding everyone?” said Ryuji, trying his level best to make it not sound like an accusation. Akechi would probably take it as one anyway, but Ryuji didn’t need to give him any extra ammunition.

“You can’t think of any reasons?” Akechi said sardonically. “Are you sure about that?”

He should’ve had a rebuttal prepared for that, probably, because it was a pretty obvious objection. Ren would’ve known what to say. Ren would know how to convince Akechi that they all (yes, _all_ of them) cared about him, despite the lies, despite the betrayal, that when they thought he was dead it had ruined each of them in a different, miserable way. Ren would know what to say, because he always did, and because he had been closer to Akechi than any of them. If Akechi had ever let anyone behind at least some of his high defensive walls, it was Ren, which was why it was even more absurd that Akechi wouldn’t freaking talk to him.

 _We care about you, idiot_ , he wanted to say, but he knew that would only make Akechi turn on his heel and walk away, and Ryuji would probably never get another shot at this conversation. So instead he said, “Ren missed you. It’s not fair that he still has to miss you even though you’re right here.”

Akechi laughed, short and harsh and humorless. “Since when has the world been fair?” And then, before Ryuji could respond, he sighed and waved one gloved hand airily. “Don’t bother, I’ve heard enough idealistic optimism for one night. And anyway, how do you know I’m not staying away from him because I want to? Would it be _fair_ for you to dictate how I spend my time?”

 _Because you look at him like Morgana looks at a Treasure when you think no one’s watching. Because you protect him in fights even when it means taking a hit yourself. Because he told me about the time that he asked you to run away with him, and as jealous as it makes me, I know he wishes he could’ve said yes_ . Sometimes Ryuji wished that he and Ren kept secrets from each other, that Ren hadn’t told him that he and Akechi had been… not dating, exactly, but not _not_ dating. Going places to be alone together, stealing kisses and sharing inside jokes and refusing to talk about what, exactly, it was that they were doing and how long they were going to be doing it for. Sometimes Ryuji wished that Ren hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him about that, so that Ryuji could go on thinking that Ren was straight (as unlikely as that would be), or aromantic, or just too busy to care about dating, instead of knowing that Ren liked guys and just preferred Akechi to him. Not that Akechi was unattractive or anything. He was very attractive. Pretty, even. So Ryuji couldn’t really blame Ren. But that didn’t make the horrible petty knot of jealousy in his stomach go away, no matter how much he wished it would.

“Is that really true?” Ryuji said, instead of verbalizing any of that. “You care about each other. I know everything is all complicated or whatever but that part of it’s not.”

“Don’t you remember how that ended last time?” said Akechi said, fingers twitching like he was pulling the trigger all over again, but Ryuji wasn’t thinking about the interrogation room, about their plan and the recorded phone call and the miserable, sickening waiting while he didn’t know if Ren lived or died, the bruises on Ren’s hands and the blood on Akechi’s. Okay, maybe he was thinking about that a little bit. But mostly he was thinking about how young and scared Akechi had looked beneath the ruins of his cracked mask, the regret in his voice from behind the wrong side of a metal wall. He was thinking about the bruises on his own hands from pounding on that wall, praying in vain that it would open, and the terrifying, defeated look on Ren’s face a week later, after Ryuji had only just barely escaped his own death, when he’d held onto Ryuji’s shoulders like he might disappear if he let go and said, _I don’t think I could survive losing both of you_.

Ryuji thought that Ren could probably survive anything, but it wasn’t fair that he was always the one who had to.

And then Ryuji’s brain skipped back a few tracks, to the engine room, to Akechi’s frantic, desperate ranting, and yeah, okay, if that was all this was about, then Ryuji couldn’t really blame him for being embarrassed about baring pretty much his entire soul, his whole secret sordid past, everything he had been so intensely proud of keeping hidden. But that wasn’t it, or at least not all of it.

Because the thing was, Ryuji had been avoiding thinking about this too closely. Partially because his grief was tied up with so many messy, tangled feelings that he didn’t have time to unpick, and partially because once Ren had told him that Akechi was alive, he’d convinced himself that it made sense, that if anyone else could be as much of a survivor as Ren was, it was Akechi. Of course he hadn’t died. He was too stubborn, and too much of a perfectionist. Dying would ruin his image, he could almost imagine Akechi saying, in his smuggest Detective Prince voice, and he was too busy for it anyway.

But now Ryuji was putting the pieces together, and he didn’t much care for the picture they made.

“Yeah,” Ryuji said, “I remember.” He took a deep breath and then, in his most conciliatory voice, the one he used when he was trying to befriend stray cats who weren’t Morgana, he said, “You died, right? And that’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re back for the same reason that,” his voice faltered as he couldn’t quite bring himself to bring anyone that Akechi, personally, had killed into the conversation, “like, Makoto’s dad was, right? Maruki’s wishes or whatever.”

“Shut up,” Akechi hissed. “You don’t know anything.” It wasn’t anger anymore, Ryuji realized, looking at the hunch of his shoulders, hearing the defensive note in his voice, snarling and snapping like a caged animal, and maybe it never had been, not really. No, Akechi was afraid. It was familiar, horribly and viscerally so, and Ryuji hated seeing him like that but he couldn’t seem to stop the words from falling from his mouth.

“You’re here because Ren wished that you were,” said Ryuji. “I kinda wondered why the rest of us got our lives reset and he didn’t even get a phone call from his parents apologizing for shipping him off to live with a stranger.” It was old anger, tight in his throat, on Ren’s behalf, and he forced himself to breath, to move past it. Ren wasn’t even here right now, and other people being angry for his sake just made him sad and uncomfortable anyway. But still. If this world really was supposed to be perfect, the least Maruki could’ve done was give Ren parents who gave a shit about him, much less appreciated just how special and amazing he was.

“That’s absurd,” said Akechi, unconvincingly.

“And you knew,” said Ryuji, because even Akechi wasn’t a good enough actor to pretend not to be surprised at finding out that he was actually dead and only brought back to life by a combination of the will of a mad scientist would-be god and the yearning of his ex-rival-with-benefits. “That’s why you’re being so distant and weird. Is it so you don’t accidentally give it away, or are you trying to convince him that you don’t care about each other so that it’ll hurt less when we defeat Maruki and you, what, fade away?” He had meant to say, _when you die again_ , but as he got to that part of the sentence the reality (ha, as if that meant anything these days) of the situation sunk in, suddenly and painfully.

Akechi was going to die again. Akechi was already dead, and Ryuji was the only other person besides Akechi himself who knew about it. At least Akechi had already figured it out on his own. Ryuji didn’t think he could handle being the one to break the news to him. He was starting to feel a little bit hysterical as it was.

“You can’t tell him,” Akechi said, taking a step forward threateningly, and he was keeping his voice low but Ryuji could hear the edges of his feral Metaverse battle cries. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” Ryuji promised automatically, and then said, “Wait, no. You have to tell him. You can’t just… leave him in the dark on something like this.”

“And why not?” said Akechi, his tone properly nasty now. “What business is it of his whether I live or die? What right does he or anyone else have to know that about me?”

 _He loves you, you asshole. He cares about you, I care about you. We all do. Let us give a shit about you, you stupid brilliant dumbass_. “It’s not fair,” said Ryuji, but even as he said it, he knew it wouldn’t be a particularly effective argument.

“No, I’ll tell you what’s not _fair_ ,” Akechi said, spitting the last word like it was a swear. “It’s not fucking fair for anyone else to decide for me what my life is worth. It’s my goddamn life, and I refuse to let anyone use it as a bargaining chip, or a reward for good behavior, or as someone else’s happy ending.”

“Ren wouldn’t-” Ren tried to interrupt.

“Oh, _wouldn’t_ he,” Akechi snarled. “Wouldn’t he. You tell me, Sakamoto, would your precious Ren ever let anyone die if he could help it? Would he ever sacrifice one of his friends for the sake of the world?” Ryuji was torn between commenting on the fact that he’d counted himself amongst Ren’s friends or on the way he acted like friendship was something dirty and contagious, like even saying the word could infect him with something inconvenient like feelings, and in the end didn't do either because it wouldn't make a difference.

“But…” he said instead, even though he didn’t actually have a good comeback for that. He was sure that Ren wouldn’t disregard Akechi’s wishes, wouldn’t treat him like a tool or a hostage or a prize the way almost everyone else had in either of his lives, but he was also sure that Ren deserved to know the truth, that hiding something this important from him until it couldn’t be hidden anymore and it was too late to do anything about it was cruel. And besides, if Akechi had to (Ryuji made himself say it, even if it was just to himself) die again, surely wouldn’t it be better to give him and Ren time together now, so that they could have this happiness first even if it couldn’t last? But maybe Akechi thought he was being selfless, noble, by depriving himself of the one thing that he wanted, even if it was what Ren wanted too. Maybe he thought it would hurt less, if he thought Ren was just losing an ex who’d been distant and unlikeable anyway. If he believed that, if he really couldn’t tell that Ren had given Akechi his heart a long time ago, he was even stupider about feelings that Ryuji thought.

“Exactly,” said Akechi, as though they’d been having a debate and he’d just won. “You promised that you won’t tell him, or anyone else, and you won’t.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Ryuji. “I still think you should, though.”

“Hmm,” said Akechi, and then his lips twitched up in a strange, bitter smile. “I suppose, if you’re so desperate, you can pass along a message to him.”

“Sure?” said Ryuji, cautiously, not entirely sure he trusted Akechi’s sudden shift in mood.

“You can’t tell him it’s from me, though,” said Akechi, “and I want you to promise me. Last request of a dying man, and all that.”

Ryuji stared at him for a moment, studying the sharp, angular lines of his face, the determined set of his jaw, and despite his newfound bravado there was still fear in his eyes, his shoulders, his hands. His hands were normally so steady, that was something that Ryuji had noticed about him early on, whether they were reaching for Ren’s shirt sleeve or wrapped around the grip of his gun, but now they were shaking, and Ryuji didn’t think it was from the cold. “I promise,” he said.

“Good,” said Akechi, taking another step closer, so that if Ryuji had been a better, braver man he could’ve reached out and taken Akechi’s hands, tried to comfort him. “You’d better pay attention, I would hate for you to get it wrong.”

“I will,” Ryuji started to say, but before he could finish getting the words out Akechi was kissing him, his lips warm against Ryuji’s in the chilling January air, his gloved hands pulling Ryuji closer by the collar of his coat, and after a split second of surprise, Ryuji leaned closer and opened his mouth to the kiss, losing himself in the contact as Akechi’s teeth scraped across his lips and Akechi’s hands migrated from tugging at his collar to pulling at his hair. Ryuji, for all his talk, didn’t have much experience with kissing but this was one of the better ones. He wondered where Akechi had learned to kiss like this. He wondered if it was with Ren. And then he reached a hand up to cradle Akechi’s face, and Akechi pulled away like Ryuji had shoved him.

He was breathing heavily, they both were, the steam clouds of their breath hanging visible in the frosty night air, and Ryuji could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. “You’re welcome,” said Akechi, with an unsteady stab at his usual confidence, and then he turned sharply on his heel and walked away before Ryuji could tell if those were tears shining on his cheeks or if it was just a trick of the light.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway. up to you to decide if the "unhealthy coping mechanisms" tag applies to the characters or to the author who accidentally ended up with almost 3000 words of angst instead of thinking about their real life problems
> 
> title from Afraid by Yellowcard
> 
> come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/selkie_au_lover) where I care a lot about PegoRyuGoro and also am specifically always emo about Goro Akechi


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